As the lazy days of summer slip away, high school students can takeadvantage of their free time to help fill the family college coffers withprivate scholarship winnings. And why should your child consider giving upprecious time at the beach or the mall? Simple. If you’re like most parents,the net cost of college will need to be considered when your child makes his orher final college choice. So the sooner your child can help the family raisecash for college, the odds are he or she will have more colleges from which tochoose to identify a great fit college. Here are some tips to increase yourchild’s chances of winning private scholarship money for college.
Avoid the Crowds
Have your student apply to scholarships that have less competition. Thebiggest tip I can give you is to not focus on national scholarships; instead,have your child seek out local and regional ones. These will have much lesscompetition. Students applying to national scholarships will likely becompeting with hundreds, if not thousands of other applicants – definitely notthe odds you want.
One of the easiest places to uncover possibilities is to ask the high schoolcounseling office for their scholarship collection since local sponsors willsend information about their scholarships directly to the local high schools.See if local alumni, or trusts or foundations set up by alumni, offer awards.Also look for other scholarships offered by local service organizations,community groups and corporations. The harder the scholarship is to find, theless competition it will likely have. Have your student ask older siblings oftheir friends which scholarships they found. Network with everyone you know tosee if they are aware of any scholarships or can lead you to someone whodoes.
The Early Bird Gets the Worm
Students should finish their college admissions applications before summerends because classmates will be focusing on the college admission process thefirst couple months of senior year and won’t have time to work on scholarshipapplications. Your child can take advantage of this time by applying toscholarships that have fall deadlines.
Get to Know the Scholarship Sponsor
The more students know about a scholarship and its sponsor, the better jobthey can do on the application. Before filling out the application, have yourstudent research a few items. First, what is the mission statement of thesponsoring organization? Second, what type of candidate has been chosen in pastyears? (Your student may be able to find this information online or in a pressrelease where there is a description of the previous winner.) Third, who willbe judging the applications? The answers to these three questions can greatlyhelp students in determining how to best approach the application because theywill have a clearer picture as to what type of candidate the sponsor may belooking for and from what perspective they will be judged.
Seniors Aren’t the Only Lucky Ones
Students can begin applying to scholarships as soon as they are in highschool (and even earlier in some cases). High school freshman, sophomores andjuniors will have much less competition for winning private scholarships thanhigh school seniors because these younger classmen aren’t typically thinkingabout winning college scholarships.
And don’t make the mistake in thinking that after your child graduates fromhigh school the opportunity ends. There are private scholarships for collegestudents too.
All the best,Deborah Fox
Deborah Fox is the founder of Fox CollegeFunding®, a nationwide company that helps families findcreative ways to reduce their college costs.